Polish FM: Alternative to Ukraine Deal was Violence
Poland's foreign minister said Friday he had received signals in Kiev that the Ukrainian president was prepared to use force should the opposition have rejected an EU brokered roadmap to end a bloody crisis.
"We were getting signals that in case the agreement fails, President (Viktor) Yanukovych was preparing to use Interior Ministry forces," Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski told reporters in Warsaw Friday evening after returning from Kiev.
"If the agreement would fail, due to the opposition rejecting it ... politically, it would have been easier for him (Yanukovych) to use force," Sikorski added.
"That's why the situation was so dramatic," he told reporters in Warsaw.
Sikorski, who along with his French and German counterparts, brokered a roadmap to end bloodshed in Ukraine, had used strong words to convince opposition leader to accept the deal, which left Yanukovych in power.
Emerging from talks with opposition leaders Friday in Kiev, a fuming Sikorski was filmed exhorting them: "If you don't support this (deal) you'll have martial law, you'll have the army. You will all be dead."
"I had to be very strong -- it wasn't a diplomatic maneuver -- it was my evaluation of the situation."
Sikorski also told reporters in Warsaw that Russian envoy Vladimir Lukin, who declined to sign the final version of the agreement, had nonetheless played a "constructive" role in brokering it.
Ukraine's embattled president signed the deal Friday with the opposition in a bid to end the ex-Soviet country's worst crisis since independence after three days of carnage left nearly 100 protesters dead.
It includes early elections, a new unity government and an amnesty for those involved in the recent violence.
It was met with skepticism or even hostility by nearly 40,000 protesters who gathered on central Kiev's main square -- many of them frustrated that Yanukovych was not stepping down.
An ex-communist EU and NATO member, Poland has long been active in drawing ex-Soviet eastern neighbor Ukraine closer to the West.
Most recently, the two countries co-hosted the Euro 2012 football championships.
Source: Agence France Presse
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